Australia may be estimatecl-at about 3500, while about 500 are in the
above-named islands. Moreover, during the last few decades, some.Nor-
wegians have settled in South Africa, in the Argentine Republic, etc.
The regular emigration to America began in 1836, but first
assumed larger proportions in 1843, when the number of emigrants
rose to 1600. The movement has been by fits and starts, with
great variations from year to year. During the years 1866#1870,
which were here in a great measure a period of financial
depression, the number rose to about 15,000 per annum, or an
average of 0.86 per cent of the population. In the seventies it
fell once more, the annual number being about 8500, with a
minimum of 3200 in 1873. In the eighties emigration assumed
. such proportions as it had never had before, rising in 1882 to
28,800 persons, or 1.50 per cent of the population. For' the 10
years 1881—1890, it averaged 18,669, or 0.96 per cent annually.
I t was also considerable during the years 1891—1893, but of later
years has been comparatively small — 5000 to 7000 per annum.
The male sex has been in the majority among the emigrants,
but the proportions have varied considerably in the different years.
The average for the period 1866—1885 was 56.30 per cent men,
and 43.70 per cent women.
Most of the emigration has been from the rural districts, including
especially day-labourers, etc., artisans, seamen and peasants,
but also people of all classes. All the age-classes have been represented,
but the comparatively greater number of both men and
women have been of the ages 20—35, and especially 20—25.
Concerning the influence of emigration on the growth of the
population at home, we would refer the reader to what has been
said in the section on the . growth of the population.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Norges o f fid d le statistik, specially:
No. 106: Oversigt over folkemcengdens bevcegelse 1866—1885.
» 284: Oversigt over de vigtigste resultater a f folketcellingen i Norge
1. januar 1891.
I 304: Livs- og d&dstabeller fo r det norske fo lk , 1880181—90191.
G u s t a v S u n d b a r g . Grunddragen a f befolkningslaran. Stockholm. 1894. "
A. B o strom. Jemforande befolkningsstatistik. Helsingfors. 1891.
G. VON Ma y r . Statistik und Gesellschaftslehre. I I . Freiburg i. B. 1897.
Statistisk tidskrift 1897 ff. (hefte 3, Internationale oversigtstabeller af G u s t a v
Su n d b a r g ).
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
Th e earliest evidences of human habitation that are found in
Norwegian soil, show us a people that have not known the
use of metals, and have, in their stead, employed stone, bone,
horn and wood for their weapons and tools. When this people
came to Norway cannot with certainty be said, but it must, at any
rate, in all probability have been at least 4000 or 5000 years ago.
The first inhabitants of Norway immigrated through Sweden and
Denmark; and there is no ground for supposing that the original inhabitants
have subsequently been mixed up to any considerable extent
with new elements. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and part of Germany,
together form an archaeological province, that is to say, in
these countries the same types of antiquities, and the same periods,
are found again. Every new influence has then naturally come
last to Norway.
The palaeolithic period is not represented in Scandinavia. Of
the earlier part of the neolithic period, which is represented in Denmark
by the kitchen-middens there are almost no remains in Norway;
but antiquities from the latter part of the neolithic age have been
found, though not in great numbers, all over the country, up to far
within the arctic circle. That Norway at this time had a settled population
is proved by the fact that in several places, the so-called workshops
of the stone age have been found, i.e. places where the
quantities of fragments of stone strewn around, and finished and
half-finished tools and weapons, show that quite a wholesale manufacture
of implements and other similar articles has been carried
on in the stone age.